"Patients who come to the hospital, who are seen only in the hospital are really being understood at a particular moment of their life," Hirsh says. "I think one could not imagine that a few days of a hospital experience could in any way define the totality of someone’s life. In contrast, our students meet patients who are well or who are sick. They follow them not only through their hospital stays, but back into clinics, or into nursing home or into the community, settings which aren’t about healthcare at all. So students will come to know why it is that certain patients don’t have access to lead-free water or to fresh vegetables and why certain choices are made by patients in their real lives, not just in a brief, brief moment of their hospital course. So in this way students can see patients in the real context of their lives and understand them fully."

And, in the process, gain the practical wisdom Aristotle spoke of.